Orienteering race 3:20 [3] 7.7 mi (26 / mi)
shoes: inov-8 X-Claw 275
@ Quantico (Beaver Dam Run)
Can I be both pleased and disappointed? Ack, I have no idea what I'm doing. First, it was a gorgeous weekend to be out in the woods, I generally had a wonderful time when I wasn't in the midst of thinking I would have to abandon my mission. My mission was generally to not give up, if I had to I would go to a main road and reorient there and go back and really try. I started early enough to believe I wouldn't be the last person out on the course even if I took ages (which in the end I did - take ages).
I was the first one to go on this first day at 9:30 am. Thank you to Amy who explained all the starting line etiquette because since I was the first person there, I had no idea what I had to do when and there was no one in front of me to watch. I failed to read the course notes which mentioned the explosive fields, I had to clarify what was meant by a mandatory crossing and also what it meant that the starting triangle was not at the start.
Then it took me about an hour to find the first control. I couldn't believe I would have to give up even before I started. Thanks to Amy again, who I bumped into to explain to me what all the black Xs meant and the green Xs and to lead me to the first control which was the same as her third control. Then she headed off in her direction with a cheerful - you can do this! I did the rest of the course without any help, but it took me a long, long time & the whole time, I had this discouraged feeling that I had just picked something that was too hard for me and that I had been silly to sign up and try to run my age group. Walked mainly, some running here and there.
I was late to my volunteer gig at the refreshment stand which was fine, though I feel badly I wasn't there to help during the real rush. Thank you to Jane who really wanted to help me post-run through my map - the most helpful tip was to tell me what the brown dashed contour lines meant (quick elevation change) and what the black thin dashed lines meant (rides). I feel like I should know all this by now, but somehow I haven't experienced them enough to really know.
Ooof, I'll have to download the route to remember what I did exactly because I can't remember now. I woke up very sore the next day not quite believing that I was going to try this again.